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The history of the Puritans, or Protestant nonconformists
The history of the Puritans or Protestant nonconformists Author:Daniel Neal Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ADVERTISEMENT TO VOL. V. OF DR. TOULMIN'S EDITION. This edition of Mr. Neal's " History of the Puritans," after many interruptions, being at length complet... more »ed, and the last volume being now presented to the public, the editor embraces this occasion to make his acknowledgments to the gentlemen who have assisted and encouraged his design. He feels his obligations to those who by their names and subscriptions have patronised it; and he is much indebted to some who, by the communication of books and manuscripts, have aided the execution of it. Situated, as he is, at a great distance from the metropolis, and the libraries there open to the studious, he sees not how he could have enjoyed the means of examining Mr. Neal's authorities, in any extensive degree, and of ascertaining the accuracy of the statements by an inspection of the writers of the last century, had not his grace the duke of Grafton most handsomely offered, and most readily supplied, a great number of books necessary to that purpose, from his large and valuable libraries. Some books of great authority were obligingly handed to him by Henry Ha;, mouth, Esq. of Exeter. His thanks are also due to tlir Rev. Josiah Thompson, of Clapham, and to Edmund Calamy, Esq. To the former, for the free use of his manuscript collections, relative to the history of the dissenting churches; and to the latter, for the opportunity of perusing a manuscript of his worthy and learned ancestor, Dr. Edmund Calamy, entitled, " An Historical Account of my own Life, with some Reflections on the Times I have lived in." He has been likewise much indebted to a respectable member of the society of Quakers, Mr. Morris Birkbeck, of Wanborough, Surrey, for his judicious remarks on Mr. Neal, and for furnishing him with Cough's valuable history of that...« less